


Like a Tail-biting Wyrm with a Toothache

by RainofLittleFishes



Series: Every Crook and Granny - Unrelated Seadweller Reproduction & Junk [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Infertility, Is That a Kraken in Your Skirts or Are You Just Happy to See Me?, Kink Meme, Miscarriage, No seriously this tag is for Feferi's monstrously large mating parts, Pregnant Trolls, Short, Silly, Stuffing, Weirdness, a series of bad ideas, let's talk about a little known phase of troll life called retirement, trollpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 20:32:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3909667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/pseuds/RainofLittleFishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beforus Eridan is Empress Feferi’s kismesis. It is the duty of the empress’s kismesis to argue opposing viewpoints and point out flaws in her reasoning, in other words, to compensate and counterweight. It works well enough… except when it doesn’t. Eridan tries to arrange for governmental continuity. It works more as a disruption. </p><p>Both Eridan and Feferi are trying to fulfill their duties. Why can’t the other see it?<br/>Feferi did not sign up for parenthood. Eridan didn't mean to make a hash of it.<br/>Cronus and Meenah are both messed up... kismesises just shouldn't try to raise kids together, not without pre-grubtual contracts.<br/>Beforus Karkat is still sorting everyone else's shit. </p><p>From a prompt for Amporae having infertility issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Tail-biting Wyrm with a Toothache

As systems go, it’s not entirely without its benefits, but it definitely has its shortfalls. Eridan Ampora is the empress’s arranged kismesis. It’s not that he minds. It’s a position of both honor and responsibility and he’s always been driven. Driven to be better than his peers. Driven to finding a purpose. This is it. He’s here on this planet to tell Feferi exactly how bad her ideas are and in what way so that she can fix them. The empress’s matesprit is an emotional position, private, sometimes, when her beloved does not also wish to dabble in politics. But the empress’s kismesis is political. The empress’s kismesis is her advisor. It is the duty of the royal kismesis to oppose her in all things… except those with which he or she agrees. The drawbacks are obvious. Without careful application, the royal kismesis will soon become their own worse enemy, conditioning the empress to oppose them in all things right back.

*

The empress is ancient and looks no older than you when you ascend to the position of her advisor as a young adult. You’ve some experience in politics and strategy. You have a few sweeps of instruction that’s mostly Faygo and snacks with her outgoing kismesis. The empress is magnificent. You’re going to help keep her that way.

A few centasweeps later, you are middle-aged and she has barely aged, but she scares you badly when she almost dies when a mad troll with a rifle gets lucky. You wait outside the hospital door while her pale harem cares for her. It is only you and these few trolls, some soft, some security. She hasn’t had a matesprit in half a centasweep. None dare to involve her in an ash quadrant. Who will tie her to her people? Who will remind her that even as she ages slowly, their culture evolves like a swift ship sailing? The currents of time are both for and against you.

You think, briefly, of what her last kismesis told you, and then you think on it some more. Gamzee Makara was as old as you were now when he ceded his position to you, but he looked ancient. He told you a lot of things, some pretty stupid, some surprisingly strange. He asked you to consider who would keep your people together if the empress was gone. He reminded you that tyrians are only ever hatched of the body and not the bucket. He asked you to keep her grounded to her people. He’s been dead two centasweeps and change and you didn’t think you’d ever miss his stupid sticky Faygo and stupid slow drawl. The empress needs someone who is not in awe of her. She needs a personal connection to the people her policies direct. Her pale harem is full of soft fluttery trolls and sharp-eyed security trolls, and you don’t think a one of them discusses policy with her, just you and her cabinet, all ancient friends. There’s no one else. Your duty is clear.

*

Eridan’s only been discussing your hypothetical heir for sweeps now. You know you scared him when you almost died, but you didn’t die, and you won’t die, not for a very long time. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a backup empress, right? And, well, at first it makes sense that Eridan should carry her. He’s big, for a troll, not as big as you of course, no one is, but almost as big as Gamzee was, larger than almost anyone outside violet and indigo, larger than even most of those castes. You didn’t always like Gamzee, but you respected him as you ought to respect a kismesis. Gamzee must have been hatched old, because even as a young adult he stood toe to toe with you and never backed down. Even Eridan slides sideways when you stand firm.

Most grubs are from the mothergrub, but it’s not that strange for a flush quad to carry their own. Not even that strange for a kismesis, but usually they don’t live together. You think at first that you will get this done and send your heir off to be trained to her future duties and someday when she’s old enough you’ll send for her and have a few chats to determine if you can trust her to take over. It won’t take long. Things will go back to what they are. You don’t realize until after how very bad an idea it was.

Eridan’s healthy, but he’s never carried before. He’s big enough to manage the metabolic burden, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t get him grubbed up and keep him that way. Sweeps pass and for the first few perigees, he never catches, and then you have a few catch and miscarry, and you really want to stop then, you don’t like how this makes you feel, you don’t really want this as much as he does and it doesn’t seem to be intended or it would have worked already. He’s determined and maybe you feel guilty. You’re Life. Why isn’t this working? Even if he’s messed up, you should be able to fix him.

Sometimes you almost pity him, but the hate always comes back as soon as he opens his mouth. You don’t want to pity him. He doesn’t pity you either. You look at Eridan now and you’re not sure if he’s changed or you have. Eridan working, serious, sometimes passionate. Eridan on the concupiscent plane, serious, sometimes passionate, like this is part of his job too.

He has a schedule. You go along with it, at least once a perigee, timed to the peak of his cycle. You watch him swell, just faintly, more than few times, handfuls and handfuls, and you watch him recover, sometimes pale from blood loss and you finally think that if he’s stupid enough to want this you’re going to give him exactly what he wants and let him choke on it. Somehow.

You still hate him. You want to fuck him so hard he shatters. He’s a good kismesis, the stone to your blade. Or a blade, trying to be a stone, to hone you. But this? This is not good for either of you. You’re up to using all of your bits when you try to fertilize him, more even than you ever tried with Gamzee, filling buckets, or, occasionally, each other.

Bulges, tentacles, tendrils, biochemical stings to make him still, make him open, make him more fertile. When you’re all the way in him, he can barely move. There are songs to the glory of your ample figure, but under the insulating blubber, your belly bows not with fat but with your heritage. A tyrian is closer to the horrorterror creators than other trolls. You could not do this with an average sized troll, you simply wouldn’t fit. You still shouldn’t. When you’re in him all the way, you could thrash him like a puppet with nothing but your internal grip. You could break even him, sturdy as he is.

You both know the classified histories of past empresses. If you grew tired of this, you could simply consume him from the inside out, like the deep-sea lampfish. Sometimes in the depths and edges of sleep you wonder what it would be like. Would you still hear his voice in your ear, dissecting your every policy, forecasting the every result? The first time you think it, you flip him over and set your teeth in his neck even as you shove back in. He doesn’t resist. You’re his kismesis, and you’re doing this for him. The least he could do is resist.

It used to satisfy you watching him conceal a limp after fighting, after filling a pail, knowing that nothing would come of it but that satisfaction.  When you finally push past all limits, sane and otherwise, you’ve burrowed your way past his seedflap and into his very seed tubes and slapped a spermatophore higher than is strictly safe. That, finally, seems to work. The first live grub. After sweeps. A violet, not a tyrian, but Eridan seems less disappointed than obsessed.

He monitors the grub’s food intake and his every output and his developmental milestones, and quite frankly acts like he wants to raise him himself. That was never part of the deal. The grub’s not all that impressive. Yes, he’s alive, and cute of course, all grubs are, and that former seems to be proof that he got lucky at least once, but he coughs a lot, lungs weak, and when he’s three perigees old and his attendants set him in water, he inhales and almost drowns. Non-functional gills. You expect Eridan to give up on him then, to admit that there’s a reason for your culling system, and this grub is one of them, but he just seems to get increasingly obsessed with Cronus. You are patient, you wait for perigees, but even after the grub pupates, Eridan still shows up to your meetings sleep deprived and less than sharp.

There are lots of trolls that are less than perfect, and lots of them are culled so that they can receive proper care. Eridan argues against the culling system a lot. Not the whole thing, but the definitions, the details. He doesn’t think that most of the cullees should be in the system. You tell him that it’s about more than budget. He tells you it’s about quality of life. That’s your point. You want them to have a good quality of life. No one but Eridan argues with you. You know it’s his job, but if anyone else agreed with his position, they would have said something, and not one does, at least not to your face. You are tired of his distraction.

This will not do. You move Cronus to the communal crèche.

*

You sneak down into the palace crèche and tell him stories each dawn when you tuck him into his ‘coon. Not the gory stuff, mostly, but histories and logic puzzles and things to make him _think_. You’re middle-aged and won’t live forever. Someone needs to argue the devil’s advocate position to the empress. You don’t actually care if he makes imperial kismesis in a few centasweeps, it’s just as well if he didn’t, but Feferi needs people that aren’t in awe of her, and you can at least teach him critical thinking. He’s not so bloodthirsty as some of the other sprogs, but you’re not interested in a berserker. He’s a good kid, an obedient child, and when Feferi finds out about your visits, it’s not from him.

She moves him, and the first time, it takes you a week to find him, until one of the kitchen staff slips one of your assistants a note. You see her nightly in that time and you both pretend you’re not upset. Maybe you should have confronted her then, you’ve never hesitated before. Her point that he’s a liability is correct. Your point that there are some liabilities that are worth it is also correct. You feel a bit dizzy arguing something where you would both usually be on the opposite sides.

You find him outside the palace, in a neighborhood full of high ranked palace employees. He has a room full of plush land animal toys. She signed him up for music lessons. Fine. You let him convince you to sing a few ballads for him and you’re back out the window before his new caretakers arrive to tuck him in at dawn. This lasts almost three perigees before they report you. Even at a solid non-panicked jog you get a sunburn from the commute.  

She moves him, and it takes you a perigee and a half to find him. She signed him up for acting classes. Fine. You convince his new caretakers to let you walk him home from school each night. This lasts almost a sweep, until school lets out for the season and you’re caught unawares this time when she moves him again.

This time it’s six perigees before you find him and you don’t know when and where this all crossed over and knotted, you and your kismesis, the empress and her advisor, Cronus and his dysfunctional progenitors. He stands very still and asks you to go away this time, clutching a plush land turtle from his first set of caretakers outside the palace. He doesn’t want to be moved again. He’s crying and all you wanted was to make her feel connected and all you’ve done is mess your grub up. You stay only long enough to teach him how to set up an account on his little husktop, set the controls to keep him out of places he shouldn’t go. You leave him with your nongovernmental screen name. You haven’t used it in ages. You don’t try to see him again, not for a long time. You can feel his tiny arms around your neck. You can smell his freshly bathed wiggler smell. You can imagine all you like, but he’s better off without being the pawn in a spat between kismesises.

*

Things seem to go back to normal for a while, at least until one day when Feferi and you both get drunk to try to forget a horrible night wherein not one but two of her friend-advisors passed of old age. You don’t like all of them. You don’t agree with most of them. But they’re important to her. You wish you had friends. The closest you have are your policy assistants, and they might agree with you, might help you mine the data until you can advise Feferi, but they don’t argue with her. You might share meals, but you don’t go for drinks together. It doesn’t matter how many watched Cronus for you or shared stories about their own wigglers. You have a duty and your kismesis expects your full attention. Even, today perhaps especially, in the bedroom.

You end up pailing for the first time since Cronus. It’s good, all sharp nails and hard but not fatal or maiming blows. You’re both bleeding and laughing and one thing leads to another… it’s a relief, really. But all those attempts at carrying seem to have trained Feferi’s horrorterror of a bulge and you end up flipped on your stomach and filled so full you should rightly burst. Actually carrying Cronus caused less distortion to your abdomen than all the attempts at conception that involved more than her primary bulge. You feel one after another of her bulges and tentacles and tendrils slide in and you should be thinking, this is a bad idea, it’s your job to think, but you missed the physical connection. You missed the nonpolitical aspects of your kismesis.

She pries you open so wide it hurts like she might flip you inside out. She fills you so full you can’t move except to clench and release your hands, your gills popped wide and aching. It feels good. Right. Like maybe you’ve made up. Kismesises again and not almost enemies in a game neither of you intended. Neither of you expected it to result in another grub, not after all the trouble the first one entailed.

When Meenah arrives, you’ve learned your lesson. You can keep her until she pupates, and then you surrender her to the crèche. Cronus writes, short little fragments that you’re slowly hammering into grammatical order. You tell him short edited tales about Feferi and about Meenah. You don’t tell him who they are to him. You tell him tales about palace politics, also edited. You tell him Beforus needs him to be a careful thinker. You tell him a lot, you listen a lot, but you never see him face to fin and when you finally do, old as you are and searching for your replacement, he’s a sleek young adult, grown soft and not sharp, searching for artistic inspiration and not purpose, he’s Feferi’s idealism, and your obsessive focus on your goals. He’s a spoiled brat and he’s convinced that you threw him away because of his gills. How could you have hurt him so badly? How could you have failed so much?

Meenah arrives back at the palace and something’s wrong there too. She knows she’s special, she expects so much, and she doesn’t want any of the work, just the privileges. Is she like this by nature? Your drive and Feferi’s blithe assumption of her privilege? Or were her caretakers so wrongheaded? You reviewed their files. You interviewed them. You visited the young heir every other perigee.

You watch the two of your once grubs circle one another in antagonistic dance in the gardens one night and you hurry down to avert the latest disaster. You tell them that they will absolutely not be filling any quadrants or pails together. They turn to you and sneer, identically, two trolls in their prime against one seadweller aged a bit past his own. They are in their hunting years. In ages past they would be proving themselves in sea hunts. Or at least Meenah would be. When Cronus leaps at you first, the both of them having made pains to tell you how unwelcome you and your advice both were, you have plenty of time to react. You could have knocked him aside, made him hurt enough to hesitate. You are still taller and larger them either of them. You are stronger than Cronus.

You cannot force yourself to raise a hand. You have failed your duty twice, perhaps thrice. Meenah knocks into you with a joyful shout and the blow is so fast the pain trails behind. Her little switchblade should be laughable, but her aim is true. You can feel your strength bleeding out as your lungs fill. Her eyes are narrowed with satisfaction, but they widen and she steps back as you cough blood. You don’t think she really meant it. You’d think more of her if she had. An accidental murderer. Sloppy. Unfit. Clearly Feferi was right, she’ll simply have to never die.

Cronus is shouting into his palmtop and then there are hands above and below the knife, trying to stanch the bleeding. He doesn’t pull it out, clever grub. “Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean it, shouldn’t have gotten mad…” He’s talking but you can’t really focus.

*

You don’t expect to wake. That you do would seem to be the tender ironic mercies of the horrorterrors, Feferi having personally previously explored so much of your internal territories that her Life considers your own hers. Meenah describes it as a light, softly tinted fuchsia, violet at the edges. She drawls out something about how she supposes Feferi can keep on kicking ass and taking names, at least until she learns the rest of her tricks. Cronus asks if it’s true, that Feferi’s his other progenitor. Had he really never known? Oops, it seemed Meenah hadn’t made the connection either. Too late now. You’re really not at your sharpest under the influence.

You might possibly have other drugged conversations with them both. It’s not like you can remember much of them, or which were real and which imagined. When you do recover enough to start discerning reality from your drugged haze it appears that Meenah and Cronus are both in cahoots to fix things… at least as much as things can be fixed by fervent application of matchmaking.

Feferi has a new kismesis, very warmblooded, very shouty. Meenah clearly has a flush crush on him. He visits you to get intelligence, or at least what little can be gleaned from your still floaty mental state. He bluntly asks if the two of you are going to have a problem. You tell him not to get knocked up. He snorts and flicks you a dismissive sarcastic salute. Karkat Vantas is an okay guy.

You find out later that Karkat’s the one that introduced the empress to her newest matesprit, another warmblood, one Nepeta Leijon. You, quite frankly, cannot find one thing to pity Nepeta for, but a bit of friendly bucket filling and whatnot might sweeten Feferi up for Karkat reforming the culling system. He plans to drag Feferi to as many culling institutions and caretakers as necessary until he gets his way. It may require a herd of hoofbeasts and all her hair, but there’s a glint in his eye that makes you relax.

You’re still not up to snuff, and the first time you try to go for a swim you almost drown. Cronus comes to visit you with a plate of invalid’s dinner and sits down to discuss hobbies that don’t involve swimming. Or sailing. Or water. Considering the source, you can’t work up to be quite as bitter as you’d like.

He tells you that he tested as almost sterile after his adult molt two perigees ago and that he’s done some stupid stuff since but he thinks he’s mostly over it. You tell him that you’ve done a lot of stupid stuff and that he should get himself a moirail, but if he needs to talk, even an old lusus can have an open ear. He tells you that you’re not old enough to be self-pitying, and you should follow your own advice for all your quads. The extra reverberation underlines the intended double meaning and his own disgust with knowing anything about either the status or activity of the nook that laid him. You laugh at his disgust and your lungs hurt. Why haven’t you gotten yourself more young assistants as entertainment before?

He tells you he’ll find you someone to pap your stupid face and someone to stand ash between you and Feferi, but that you’re on your own for anything concupiscent. That was… actually not inefficient. Perhaps Karkat needs another assistant.

He leaves you with a newly published history book from one of your favorite authors, a gift from Meenah. The note inside is an apology. Of a sort. Sincere, if very explanatory. You’re definitely going to have to point Karkat at Meenah’s caretakers. It seems that they might have been making very heavy hints at how Meenah could have everything she wanted if only she’d just get rid of Feferi first. And, past her first real act of violence against another troll, Meenah finds herself less than pleased to have gone along with someone else’s agenda. This might actually not be entirely a failure. You all clearly deserve one another.

You poke at the idea of not being Feferi’s kismesis. Okay. You poke at the idea of leaving to go garden in the desert. Still nope. Joining the carnival to make balloon lusii like Gamzee in his last years? Still not happening. You poke at the idea that watching Karkat and Feferi go at one another might be very entertaining, even if good taste limits you to the clothed arguments. Yes, please. You’re going to be crotchety and judgmental and lure Karkat into gossiping. With tea. None of that sticky Faygo junk. This retirement thing might work.


End file.
